If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world’s leading children’s rights organization would like to hear from you.

For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children’s survival, protection and development. The world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.

Background & Rationale:

UNICEF’s programming on both gender equality and innovation has witnessed significant acceleration across the organization within the last few years. To build off the achievements and bring some of the most promising features of these two parallel efforts together, the Gender Section and the Office of Innovation at UNICEF are launching the Innovation Gender Challenge, a collaboration focused on:

Improving the equitable use by girls of the existing technology platform- U-Report- and the gender-responsive application of U- Report in UNICEF country offices in line with programming priorities of the Gender Action Plan (GAP)

Piloting new open-source solutions via the Innovation Fund, to address unsolved problems related to gender equality that are defined by the UNICEF Country Office in line with the GAP.

Gender at UNICEF:

The Gender Action Plan (GAP) 2014-2017 is UNICEF’s framework to advance gender equality across the organization’s work at the global, regional and country levels, in alignment with the UNICEF Strategic Plan 2014-2017. The GAP takes a dual programming approach of both targeted and mainstreaming efforts to advance UNICEF’s results on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. The GAP identifies four targeted gender priorities, which focus on adolescence, and particularly, the empowerment of adolescent girls:

Promoting gender responsive adolescent health;

Advancing girls’ secondary education;

Ending child marriage; and

Addressing gender-based violence in emergencies.

Country offices are required to prioritize at least one targeted gender priority in their country programmes. They are also required to prioritize at least one concrete “gender mainstreaming” result within or across the seven outcome areas (e.g., Health, Water Sanitation and Hygiene ) where there is potential for strategic & robust gender-responsive programming at scale in UNICEF’s sectoral work. Some examples of gender mainstreaming issues include: sex differentials in child mortality, gender relevant support and information for women and girls in emergencies, and gender equitable primary school education.

Innovation at UNICEF:

UNICEF’s Office of Innovation explores and supports the use of emerging technology solutions in UNICEF’s programmes and beyond to achieve results for children. The Office of Innovation focuses on solutions at varying stages:

UNICEF Futures looks at the 2-5 year horizon to evaluate emerging and trending technologies and explores partnerships with companies to shape technology products and services with the aim of improving the lives of children.

UNICEF Ventures invests in early stage solutions that show great potential to positively impact children in the 0-2 year future. Focusing exploration and early-stage piloting, this investment comes from the Innovation Fund, which is a pooled funding vehicle that invests in open source technology solutions coming from start-ups and Country Offices. The Fund allows for more to be generated before UNICEF determines whether a given solution should be taken to scale.

UNICEF’s Global Innovation Centre (GIC)identifies proven solutions and support scale-up across UNICEF’s COs to enable their integration into existing programming. The GIC provides the leadership and technical support to deploy and scale these up, expanding their application by UNICEF and others. The scale-up portfolio currently includes solutions that are powered by RapidPro such as U-Report

With over 3 million users engaged through SMS and digital channels, U-Report has shown strong potential and use across real-time data collection and analysis, counselling and outreach, emergency level-3 monitoring and advocacy at local and national levels. And in late 2016, UNICEF set up a Program Division task force to look at how better to use Rapid Pro – the platform on which U-Report functions – across sectoral programming.

750,000 girls and women are currently engaged through U-Report. However, on average, boys and men are better represented among U-Reporters, with an average distribution of 65:35, boys: girls.

Innovation Gender: U-Report Pilot

As part of the Innovation Gender Challenge, by the end of 2017, UNICEF is seeking to understand how U-Report can: 1) Increase the ratio of female U-Report users to achieve equitable representation and 2) Address key gender inequities and advance girls’ empowerment opportunities as aligned with the Gender Action Plan based on the priorities discussed with the CO for using the U-Report tool.

Purpose:

Therefore, in line with the Innovation Gender Challenge U-Report learning objectives outlined above, the Gender Section is seeking a Consultant to support this collaboration with the Office of Innovation, who will function as a technical advisor and who will produce specific deliverables described below. These deliverables are envisioned to improve U-Report recruitment tactics to engage more girls, and use the platform to engage in gender content topics of particular relevance to country office gender programming in line with the GAP.

Expected results: (measurable results):

1. Recruitment tactics to strengthen the participation and engagement of women and girls on U-Report identified and piloted, which will be possible following the completion of the following outputs:

Review of U-Report data and case studies to increase understanding of girls’ and

women’s participation and recruitment as U-Reporters and related barriers, including disaggregation by disability as available. A specific focus will be on targeted countries, e.g., Ukraine, who have good gender balance of U-Reporters.

U-Report data analyses will include gender distribution patterns compared to overall trends on similar platforms and gendered digital media use. Review of the relevant literature on digital engagement and outreach methodologies of girls and women, including social network analysis and digital/virtual networks.

Selection and interaction with a small group of 3 pilot UNICEF Country Offices that have an interest in addressing these challenges.

Analysis of pilot findings for global learning and adaptation of the U-Report platform, including case studies from existing model countries.

Working with 3 country offices to develop and implement a recruitment strategy to increase the number of female U-Reporters.

2. Improve identification and response to gender sensitive issues, content and communications, which will be possible following the completion of the following outputs:

Analysis of selected Country Offices’ U Report data and a review of existing poll language and content. This analysis may include a gender risk assessment of U-Report participation, including potential risk by engaging on sensitive topics.

Identification of important gender content topics that are particularly relevant to girls and CO gender-responsive programming aligned with the GAP.

Selection and interaction with a small group of 3UNICEF Country Offices that have an interest in addressing these challenges.

Exploration of a feature in U-Report to allow girls and boys to rate the platform in terms of being gender-responsive to give real-time accountability and feedback, thus empowering girls and boys to have a say in what is ‘adolescent-friendly’ and/or ‘gender-sensitive’, and provide recommendations to improve U-Report programming work.

Analysis of pilot findings for global learning and adaptation of the U-Report platform

3. Increase in understanding of U-Report data collection and use, which will be possible following the completion of the following outputs:

Exploration of how U-Report data can be used by the Country Office and Gender Team at global, regional and local levels to inform programming and advocacy.

Management:

The consultant will be supervised by the Senior Gender and Development Specialist, Gender Section, NYHQ and will also work closely with the Coordinator for Innovation, in the EAPRO Regional Office in Bangkok, Thailand, the Senior Gender Advisor in EAPRO, and other key senior staff within the Gender Section and Innovation Office at NYHQ.

Advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in the social sciences (i.e. sociology, demography, psychology, political science, social policy, economics, etc.), international development, product design or entrepreneurship, public policy, public health, or in another relevant area; familiarity with ICT, digital media and/or coding highly desirable.

A minimum of 5 years of relevant experience and expertise with gender programming, innovative programming and platforms, and/or international development research required; experience in programmatic countries an asset;

Understanding of gender equality, adolescents, and youth in international development (including current programming and research), as well as current trends and innovation in terms of technologies for UNICEF’s programmatic areas;

Strong enthusiasm and experience with innovative approaches and platforms for international development, adolescents and youth, and/or gender results;

Experience and skills with M&E, organization, project planning and management as relates to innovative products, platforms or technologies is required;

Please indicate your ability, availability and daily/monthly rate (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference above (including travel and daily subsistence allowance, if applicable). Applications submitted without a daily/monthly rate will not be considered.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages qualified female and male candidates from all national, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of our organisation.

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About This Site

This site contains a sampling of UNICEF’s Innovation initiatives, resources, media coverage, and first person posts on how UNICEF country offices are creating innovations in programme, process, partnership and product.